Reflecting on the Golden Jubilee of Bernal's The Social Function of Science

Bernal J. D. , The social function of science (hereafter SFS) (London, 1939), Preface, p. xv.

Hodgkin D. M. C. , “John Desmond Bernal”, Biographical memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, xxvi (1980), 17–84, p. 22.

Quoted by Hodgkin , ibid., 23.

Ibid.

SFS, ch. 7, 165–90, p. 171.

ibid., 186.

ibid., 187.

Rose H. and Rose S. , “The two Bernals: Revolutionary and revisionist in science”, Fundamenta scientiae, ii (1981), 267–86, p. 268 (I am indebted to Professor Steven Rose for this reference): Young R. , “The relevance of Bernal's questions”, Radical science journal, x (1980), 85–94, p. 90. While not agreeing with this juxtaposition of science and communism ascribed to Bernal, I respect these writers for their work and engagement in trying to make scientists and non-scientists appreciate the social, economic, political and ideological relations of past and present science.

Young , 86.

SFS, 415–16.

See Hobsbawm E. , in “The missing history — a symposium”, The Times literary supplement, 23–29 June 1989, p. 690.

SFS, 408.

ibid., 408.

ibid., 409.

ibid., 410.

What follows draws on my essay “The scientific-technical revolution: An historical event in the twentieth century?”, in Porter R. and Teich M. (eds), Revolution in history (Cambridge, 1986), 317–30.

Bernal J. D. , Science in history, 2nd edn (London, 1957), 960.

Bernal J. D. , Science in history, 3rd edn (London, 1965), p. xv.

Bernal J. D. , Science in history, illustrated edn (4 vols, London, 1969), i, 15.